One of the people whose blog I read on a regular basis recently re-posted the link to a page I’ve seen before, 101 Biblical Contradictions. I’m going to surprise a few people here: I don’t disagree with a single one of the comments or contradictions in that post. The Bible is full of contradictions, instructions to commit immorality and other shocking statements and practices.
If the Bible is the word of the actual Creator, I would expect to give Her an A+ for historical methodology and moral philosophy in the same way that I would give Her an A+ in Physics, Chemistry, mathematics, astronomy and other sciences.
The explicit purpose of Scripture is to sway the mind and heart of the reader. In other words, it is persuasive writing. The writers’ intent was to prove a case, not chronicle a series of events. As such, historical and scientific accuracy were secondary considerations, when they were even considered at all.
Bear in mind that since we are speaking of the alleged ‘infallible word of God’ it shall be insufficient to justify ‘some’ of the Biblical contradictions; in order to justify the infallibility of the Bible, ‘all’ of the contradictions must be justified.
This doesn’t match the dictionary definition of infallible: not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint. My source here is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, not the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Does that mean Scripture isn’t the Word of God? No. What it means is that the writers were humans who worked under the influence of God. There is absolutely no evidence that He dictated Scripture word-for-word. We are humans with free will, not oblivious puppets.
With that, I’ll go into not a point-by-point refutation, but more of a general answer.
Were to go back in time to meet the authors of the Bible, we would probably consider them to be primitive and overly superstitious blood sacrifice cultists; whereas to them we would seem as if gods; our science would give them the impression that we had great magical powers; our weapon technology would make us invincible.
The same is true if those living two thousand years in the future came back to meet us. We’d be awed and dumbstruck at their science and technology, and they’d consider us little more than illiterate primitives. Depending on social evolution, their reaction would be amusement, amazement or possibly even negative judgment.
When George ‘God told me to invade Iraq’ Bush’s god is clearly the god of state terrorism, narco-terrorism; a god that lusts for oil, opium, money and human slavery; a god that drops depleted uranium ion women and children for the purposes of Capitalist imperialism. Clearly Bush’s Capitalist is most people’s definition of the Devil.
Where in Scripture can you find any evidence that George Bush has a proper understanding of God? There are many Christians who consider him to have totally perverted the concept. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him the devil. But I certainly don’t think his behavior (or that of most politicians) is necessarily an expression of God’s will.
I don’t think I have the perfect interpretation either. I wouldn’t presume to know the mind of God; it’s too big and complex for a mere human mind to understand it (if we did, God would be a human being). That’s why words like “mystery” come into play in faith-related matters.
The article then launches into a long list of historical inaccuracies. I’ve noted above that any intelligent interpretation of Scripture recognizes its historical basis as questionable. In most cases, the Scriptures themselves were written years after the actual events. Before that, history was passed down orally. Any student of history, no matter how superficial, understands that the exact accuracy of oral histories is questionable. But that doesn’t make them untrue.
I’ll use an example from my own family. Its oral history states that the date on my grandmother’s grandmother’s birth certificate is incorrect. Can we prove it? No. But do I believe it? Yes. I’ve chosen to believe that the people who were in the room know more than the register of deeds.
The larger question, though, is what does it matter if my great-grandmother’s mother’s birth date is or isn’t wrong? Is that really as important as who she was?
On moral philosophy with regards to the justifications for rape, genocide, infanticide, human and animal sacrifice cultism, cannibalism etc., [...] I would consider Her to be criminally insane and the definition of ‘evil.’ I would also consider it to be the case that anyone who believed that this was the ‘word of God’ was also criminally insane, and a morally (i.e., the discernment of good and evil) worthless individual.
Modern-day sociologists insist that we can’t judge one culture’s morals by those of another culture. What is this statement except exactly that? There are cultures today that practice all of those obscene practices. Based on this statement above, we as a “morally enlightened” people should step in right now and put a stop to it. There’s a name for that kind of behavior: imperialism.
It’s also interesting to note that it’s Christians who more actively promote moral absolutism. Moral relativism is primarily a secular belief.
The evidence given for objectionable practices such as blood sacrifice is exclusively based on the Jewish Scriptures (what some call the Old Testament). Christian belief is that Jesus’ sacrifice eliminated the need for all of those other sacrifices. It follows that they should no longer be practiced; or, in other words, there is now a complete proscription against blood sacrifices.
Before you argue against “changes” in Scriptural instruction, let me point out the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments to the United States Constitution.
We all must bear in mind, the nazarene [sic] was the ultimate human sacrifice; also “eat his body and drink his blood” is repeatedly recited during nearly every Christian mass/service around the world.
While this statement was intended to be sarcastic, from a Christian standpoint it’s entirely true — and I said so earlier.
Jesus’ own sacrifice was horribly bloody, but explaining the bloodless sacrifice that is the Eucharist would take an entire blog post on its own. That being said, there’s a logical way to explain the Real Presence using Aristotelian philosophy. Was Aristotle a Christian?
In my mind, the more important question is, am I? If I profess Christian belief, shouldn’t I be aware of its own teachings? As a human being with free will, shouldn’t I have thought those through instead of blindly accepting them? And shouldn’t I actually practice them?
That’s why I read Scripture despite its known historical and scientific inaccuracies. When viewed as what it is — the account of God’s gradual revelation to mankind — the intent and instructions for practice are perfectly clear. We have to understand where we come from in order to understand where we’re going.